Minister flags smaller marine parks

The South Australian Government says it is likely the final boundaries of new marine parks will be smaller than the 19 initially proposed.

Environment Minister Jay Weatherill has been in the south-east, discussing the plan with the fishing industry.

Mr Weatherill says it is important that the fishing industry is not overwhelmed by the initially-proposed size of the protected zones.

"Certainly one of the propositions we've put is to be able to shrink those boundaries after we've completed that detailed zoning work and that's the work that really has to start now," he said.

"It is likely that there'll be some opportunity to bring the boundaries back in around the zones that have been decided upon because we really don't need the marine park boundaries to be any larger than are necessary to protect what we need to protect.

"But we won't know that until we've done that hard work."

Some fishing interests have been vocal in their opposition to protected zones which might affect their catch.